Piet Cloete has relinquished his role as Outeniqua High School’s 1st XV coach after a magnificent 2008 season.

Cloete – now director of rugby at the school – has also stepped down as SWD Craven Week coach with whom he enjoyed immense success. The Young Eagles won Craven Week in 2008, and from that side 14 players came from Outeniqua. Excitingly, six of these players are still at the school this year.

This year, Braam Tucker has massive shoes to fill to continue the trend that saw this underrated George outfit comprehensively defeating most of their opposition last year. Tucker will have the comfort of having former Bulls captain, Anton Leonard, at his disposal.

Outeniqua will be attending the St John’s festival as well as a short tour of Windhoek in preparation for their season. Paarl Gym, Paul Roos and Paarl Boys make up a strong contingent of Cape schools that will look to keep Outeniqua at bay as well as a big challenge scheduled against Oakdale whom they last lost to in 2002.

Look out for tough flanker Heinrich Pyper who excelled at last year’s Craven Week along with the precocious talent of flyhalf Jaco van Tonder. Outeninqua will again be looking for a top-10 spot in the schoolboy rankings this year and who would bet against this happening?